Kenyan McDuffie, a Howard University alumnus and fourth-generation Washingtonian, announced in January that he was joining the Washington D.C. mayoral race. McDuffie’s website highlights his journey from ‘mailman to mayor,’ and lays out his vision for a nicer, safer and more inclusive city.
Born in 1975 into a ‘tight-knit’ community in Northeast called Stronghold, McDuffie is no stranger to life in the nation’s capital. For McDuffie, Stronghold is a family legacy; his family still lives in the house his grandparents bought in 1952, just a few years after the Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kramer that housing covenants restricting certain races from property sales could not be legally enforced. Watching his grandparents and other residents from Stronghold maintain their community defines McDuffie’s commitment to public service.
“[They] helped to shape my view about government and how it could be used as a tool to help those at the lower end of the socio-economic totem pole,” said McDuffie.
Growing up in D.C., McDuffie was no stranger to Howard and its legacy, where he’d attend basketball games and peek over the Greene Stadium fence to watch the football team play. However, college didn’t seem attainable to him after graduating from Jackson-Reed (formerly Wildrow Woodson) high school in 1995.
“It felt so distant because none of my family had gone there. I’m actually the first man in my family to graduate from college,” said McDuffie, who hadn’t applied to any colleges as a senior in high school. Instead, McDuffie looked for work, but had no luck.
“When I graduated from high school, D.C. was experiencing some tough times, both as the murder capital of the United States, and we were financially struggling,” said McDuffie.
Because so many were moving out of the city due to high crime rates, the city experienced a financial crisis so extreme that the federal government took control of the city’s budget for five years starting in 1995.
“I really struggled, like a lot of the young folks in the community during that time, and made a bunch of bad decisions,” said McDuffie, who dropped out of the University of D.C. (UDC) twice. “What changed my life came in the form of an offer of employment from the United States Postal Service (USPS),” he added.
McDuffie’s desire for political work was born out of tragedy in 1998, when two of his friends, Dion and Marvin, died by gun violence in the span of a few months.
“I had experienced grief in the form of gun violence in my neighborhood more than you would want,” McDuffie said, before referencing his godfather, who was killed by an off-duty Metropolitan police officer when he was 13. “It hit me like it never hit me before,” McDuffie added.
While McDuffie, working as a mail carrier at the time, was financially stable, he felt like he wasn’t doing enough. Through his campaign pillars – affordability, accountability and opportunity – McDuffie wants to build a government that delivers for all Washington D.C. residents.
“I was tired of people being shot and killed,” said McDuffie.
As a council member, McDuffie passed the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Result (NEAR) Act in 2016 to reduce crime by addressing root causes and increasing MPD transparency. McDuffie also authored the Body-Worn Camera Program Amendment Act in 2015, which gives the public access to body camera footage.
In his campaign for mayor, McDuffie advocates for an increase in housing supplies and policies that make living in the district more affordable in basic ways. This includes cutting the cost to produce housing across incomes and ensuring that existing residents can still afford to live in the city.
“Whether you are someone who owns a restaurant, or work in the restaurant at the back of the house, you should be able to afford to live in D.C.,” McDuffie said.
Among other policies, McDuffie believes that the proposed RFK complex, which involves a new NFL stadium, housing units and a sportsplex, can bring about economic goodwill. However, many residents, such as the over 500 who testified in a hearing surrounding the project, remain wary of the price tag. According to the initial proposal, the project would be funded in part with over a billion dollars directly from the district’s public revenue.
“When the mayor provided the initial agreement to the council, I was one of the leads at the council that said ‘yeah, we can do better,’” said McDuffie, who said that he worked with the council member of ward seven to ensure locals are rehired at the complex, and that the development of the project includes D.C. based developers.
According to McDuffie, the negotiation led by him and other council members led to an additional $800 million in public revenue and a $50 million community benefits agreement, as well as giving the community a voice in the process.
Working as a mail carrier gave McDuffie union benefits and wages that sustained his family and got him through college, after he transferred from UDC and graduated from Howard summa cum laude. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University in political science and community development and later obtained a law degree from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
McDuffie’s time at Howard laid the groundwork for a life in government, where he served as president of the Political Science Society and vice president of Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honors society. Mcduffie stated that his success at Howard was centered around the ability to uplift his community.
“I was interested and focused and my professors picked up on that and supported my ambition,” said McDuffie.
Howard was also the start of McDuffie’s activism. While working for the postal service and attending Howard, McDuffie watched as people in his neighborhood struggled, leading him to become involved in Stronghold’s civic association.
McDuffie worked as a law clerk in various places around the DMV before becoming an assistant attorney for Prince George’s county in 2007 and a civil rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in 2008. He unsuccessfully ran for Ward 5 council member in 2010, but won the seat in 2012 after the former council member was found guilty of federal crimes and resigned. McDuffie represented Ward 5 for ten years, then became one of two council members at-large in 2023.
In 2021, he introduced the Child Wealth Building Act, popularly known as baby bonds, which would give low-income children born in wards 7 and 8 a trust fund, increased by $600-1000 a year, to reduce the racial wealth gap.
A proponent of public benefit programs, McDuffie credits former Mayor Marion Berry’s youth investment initiatives for helping him land his first job. McDuffie credits Berry’s leadership for using government as a tool to empower communities and invest in marginalized people.
“That civil rights legacy and focus on economic opportunity is something that inspires my public service,” said McDuffie. McDuffie is also an alumnus of Berry’s youth leadership institute, where he learned how to lead communities. Berry is often credited with reforming D.C. from its conditions before the year 2000.
Lauren Burne is in charge of the McDuffie campaign communication, and described working with his campaign as a no-brainer after knowing him for five years.
“With the rise of fascism and authoritarianism right now regarding Donald Trump, it’s important to have the right leaders in place,” said Burne, who has worked in news and media since graduating from American University.
McDuffie did not state any specific new policy plans to increase D.C’s autonomy in place of the deployment of the National Guard and increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, but referenced speaking up to protect undocumented immigrants in the past and past initiatives for police reforms he hopes might be applied to federal officers.
“I will be crystal clear. There is no agreement or executive order I will sign that includes operation with ICE,” said McDuffie.
McDuffie officially announced his campaign on Jan. 15 and raised over $181,000 in 24 hours by individual donations, the most raised within the day of announcement in D.C.’s history. McDuffie will face off against two other Howard University alumni, Talib Karim Muhammad and Janeese Lewis George, in the June 16 D.C. primary elections.
Copy edited by D’Nyah Jefferson Philmore
